FARMER’S DEATH

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 99, 7 April 1933, Page 3

FARMER’S DEATH

WAIRARAPA RESIDENT. KICKED BY HORSE. MASTERTON, April 6. A well-known district farmer, Mr Robert Oliver Smith, of Earlyhurst, aged 64 years, was found dead this afternoon, apparently as the result of having been kicked and dragged by a horse he was breaking in. There were no eyewitnesses of the accident. Mrs Smith saw her husband yarn ad unbroken yearling and put a long rope round its neck, preparatory to schooling it, but she then returned to the house. Ou Mr Smith failing to conic in to lunch she investigated and found the gate of the yard broken down. Some distance down the path leading from the yard she found her husband’s body, and in a gully below the horse still with the rope round its neck. Apparently Mr Smith had been kicked on the head and had become entangled in the rope and had been dragged by the animal. The late Mr Smith, who had resided in the Mastetrou district for the past 30 years, was very highly respected and took a keen and active part in many district actitvities. He was a keen follower of sport and a great lover of horses and an expert horseman. He was a steward of the Msterton Racing Club for a number of years. He was a very generous benefactor to St. Matthew’s Collegiate School for Girls, and had been a member of the Board of Governors of the school since 1917. In addition to be ing a very ejfficient farmer, he was a competent land and stock valuer. Mr Smith leaves a widow and family. Knocked down by a motor-cycle in afternoon, Francis George Goddard, aged two years and eleven months, a son of Mr David Maxwell Goddard, received severe head injuries from which he died an hour later.